There’s hardly a traveler who doesn’t want to go to Nepal to see the world’s highest and most impressive mountains, who doesn’t want to meet its famously big-hearted people, and who isn’t lured by the country’s vibrant, madly chromatic culture.

Nepal is a wondrous crossroads of religions, cultures, and geography. Hinduism holds sway throughout the country’s south while Buddhism flows across the northern border from the Tibetan Plateau. Both great faiths uniquely fuse with ancient animist beliefs and shaman rituals. Nepal is home to dozens of linguistic groups, tribes and castes, forming a rich and varied cultural mosaic.